REVIEW: Samsung Vibrant, T-Mobile’s Galaxy S phone gets reviewed

Well folks, it’s here. The T-Mobile Samsung Vibrant is the first of the four Samsung Galaxy S devices to hit US shelves, and the manufacturer’s first Android Superphone. The standout feature of the Vibrant is its gorgeous 4-inch Super AMOLED display. Accompanying the display, the Vibrant sports a 5-megapixel camera with 720p HD video recording, a 1GHz Hummingbird processor with a GPU beats the hell out of any smartphone GPU today, a 6 axis motion sensor, and a nifty take on the TV-out method that’s unseen on many smartphones today. How does the Vibrant stack up to the competition? Will that screen send others running? Read on to find out.

The Vibrant is the only variant that doesn’t have a completely different hardware design from the original Galaxy S. I like that the Vibrant remains close to the design aesthetic of the original, but that’s just my personal opinion. That said, the Galaxy S device looks painfully close to an iPhone 3G. Coming in at just 9.9mm thick, with the exception of the hump on the bottom of the backing, it almost looks thicker than it is. It’s when you pick the Vibrant up that you get a sense of how thin it is. It may not be the thinnest smartphone, but it does the job very well. The Vibrant is about as thin as the Motorola Droid X, but thanks to its curved edges, it’s easier to get a grip on and looks thinner. The Vibrant is completely void of hard lines, and goes with curves throughout the whole design.

The over all feel of the Vibrant is very plastic-y. It’s so slippery, in fact, that I dropped the thing twice in my first two days playing with it. You can thank the plastic battery cover for this, but it’s actually very easy to slip the Vibrant into and out of your pocket; probably easier than I’ve seen on a device before.

Something you won’t find a lot of on the Vibrant? Physical buttons. The only real buttons you’ll find on it is the volume rocker and the power/lock button. All other functions are handled by the capacitive touch buttons on the front face. The Vibrant, along with all other Galaxy S variants have had their button configurations modified from that of the original, to the standard set of Android buttons, menu, home, back, and search.

The volume rocker finds a home on the left side of the handset, and the Power/end button resides on the right side. It took me a while to get used to the new location for the lock button, but I eventually got used to it; though I’m still not in love with its placement. On the bottom of the Vibrant, you’ll only find the hole for the microphone, because the charging port is on the top, next to the 3.5 mm headphone jack. Instead of the plastic cover you have to pull out every time to charge the phone, Samsung has replaced it with a small slider that is easy to open and close. Why it took so long for someone to think this up is beyond me, but it’s a great implementation.

The Vibrant comes in at 4.82” x 2.54” x 0.39”, and weighs 4.16 ounces. This thing is light, and may surprise you the first time you pick it up. You can thank the heavy use of plastics for the light in-hand feel. Having owned the Samsung Behold 2 for a couple of weeks – one of the most unfortunate experiences I’ve ever had on a phone – I was worried that the Vibrant would suffer from a very small quirk. The haptic feedback on the Behold 2 was horrible, it made the whole device vibrate, making the device sound hollow all the way through. This is somewhat present in the Vibrant, but it’s much better than the previous, failed T-Mobile Android phone.

Let’s not forget the star of the show. The Vibrant sports a 4-inch Super AMOLED display, which is much thinner than standard AMOLED screens. Not only that, it provides a crisper picture, is even more energy-efficient, and suffers less reflection and glare in sunlight. Upon first site, you’ll notice that the display is very bright and and the picture sharp, but it’s when you start watching videos on the Vibrant that you really start to see what the fuss is all about. It’s easy to see why T-Mobile threw Avatar on the device, the Super AMOLED display is a truly stunning, gorgeous screen.

Software

The Vibrant comes with Samsung’s customized user interface, called Touchwiz 3.0 / S-Life that runs on top of Android 2.1. It’s no where as scary as the unfortunate TouchWiz UI that we saw on the Behold 2, but some residual Touchwizadry (if you will) still remains. The new Touchwiz 3.- UI is scaled back, and fairly convenient to use – coming with a handful of handy and useful new widgets and applications. It may not be as sexy as the Sense UI, but from a usability standpoint, Touchwiz 3.0 does the jobs well.

The first notable change you’ll see on the Vibrant is the lock screen. There’s no bar that you slide to the right like you see on Eclair or Froyo. Instead, the entire screen is a slider. You simply touch a part of the screen and move it in any direction to unlock it. It’s different, and not in a bad way at all. If you want the more traditional Android lockscreen, you can find a lockscreen replacement in the Android Market.

After unlocking the screen, you’ll immediately notice more changes. A non-customizable application dock lines the bottom of the screen, with the Dialer, Contacts, Messaging, and a button to launch your application drawer. The application drawer has also undergone a makeover. Instead of the long list of applications that you scroll vertically, Samsung chose to go the iPhone route – making you swype horizontally through your applications. It works well, but it’s not for everyone. Samsung also added different view types – a list view, an alphabetical grid view, and a customizable grid view – which will allow you to uninstall applications right from the app launcher. That’s right, you can uninstall apps right from the app tray/homescreen.

[UPDATE: It looks like you can customize the dock on the bottom of the screen, but only the two icons in the middle. To do this, you much go into your app launcher, and make sure the View Type is on Customizable Grid, which you can change by hitting Menu > View Type > Customizable Grid. While still in the Application launcher, hit Menu > Edit to change the two middle dock icons. Not the most intuitive, but we’re glad we have the option! Thanks welshy992 for the tip!]

Speaking of homescreens, you have 7 homescreens panes to play with. A line of dots along the top of the display that indicates what homescreen you are currently on. Furthermore, you can just tap on of the dot to jump to a specific home screen, instead of swiping through multiple panes to get to your desired homescreen. You can also delete homescreens when you hit menu>edit, which will allow you to remove or add homescreens as you choose.

The custom UI also comes with many nice widgets, like the Daily Briefing widget, AccuWeather Clock, Buddies now, Calendar Clock, Days widget, Dual Clock, Feeds and Updates, and a Yahoo! Finance Clock. You’re likely not going to use all of the available clocks, but with a decent number of options available, you’ll find something for you. The Daily Briefing widget shows you the current weather, a specific stock from Yahoo! Finance, and headlines from AP news.

The Vibrant also comes with a handful of preloaded applications from Samsung and T-Mobile. The list is rather large, and some applications are unneeded. You’ve got an AllShare applications for DLNA, Audio Postcard, redone Calculator, and a revamped Calendar that doesn’t look as nice as the stock Android calendar (but provides some pretty cool additions, like automatically syncing all Facebook invites in a list). You’ve also got a GoGo application, Kindle, Layar, Media Hub (which doesn’t work at the moment, but will allow you to rent or buy movies), Memo pad, Mini Diary, MobiTV, nicely redone Music player, T-Mobile My Account/Device, Slacker Radio, TeleNav GPS, Sims 3, ThinkFree Office, Visual Voicemail, Voice recorder, Video Player, Write and Go, and let’s not forget the preloaded Avatar movie. Many of these applications will be useless to some, and I have a hard time believing many people will actually use all of the preloaded applications frequently.

While the Vibrant comes with many needless applications pre-installed, the UI looks to be one of the better custom user interfaces for Android; balancing somewhere in between functionality and aesthetics. If you don’t like it, you can download one of the many home replacements available in the Android Market. That said, from my experience, adding a home replacement significantly slowed down the entire device to the point I just had to uninstall it.

Speaking of slowdowns, I’ve experienced a lot of lag with the Vibrant, both before and after I uninstalled my home replacement. Hitting the home button can take a few seconds more than you’d imagine, and some applications seem to suffer greatly. Google Finance took almost 20 seconds to open for me at one point. Sometimes you’ll launch an application, and it will open up to a black screen and sit their for a while before actually giving you the application’s content. I have yet to hear anything like this from any other Vibrant user, so hopefully it’s just my review unit. Also, as many others I have heard from, the Vibrant can suffer quite badly with its GPS. Thankfully, there is a fix for that, and Samsung is working on the issue and plans to address it with the next update.

WebBrowsing, Multimedia, and Camera

The Samsung Vibrant comes with optimizations in the web browser, multimedia playback, as well as the camera. Some modifications are merely subtle changes, while others are much-needed tweaks. The Web browser sees some small upgrades, where the Music Player and Camera have been redone for the better.

Web Browser

You won’t notice much change at first glance of the Web Browser. For the most part, it looks like the stock Android browser. But, when you dig into the menus, you start to see the changes. On the stock Android Browser, when you hit the menu, you can access your bookmarks. Samsung has replaced this with a built-in RSS reader that will allow you to add feeds to Google Reader instantly. You can still access your Bookmarks easily with the small icon found on the browser’s progress bar.

One feature that was surprising to find, since I had yet to hear Samsung ever make mention of was Flash Lite. Flash Lite is found on a couple of Android devices, namely HTC Sense phones, but it has very little use. Still, a little Flash is better than no Flash at all, depending on how you look at it. This will change when the device gets updated to Android 2.2 Froyo.

I’m not sure if this is a good or bad thing, but the browser comes with a dedicated brightness setting that you’ll find only if you hit Menu, and then More. I can see where this could be helpful, but I’m just not sure if it’s necessary.

Multimedia

The Music Player for the Vibrant gets it all right, providing a slick UI that’s superbly easy to use. Gone is the ugly stock Android Music player, and even some of the best media player replacements in the Android Market can’t compare to Samsung’s implementation. When held horizontally, a cover-flow esque, rotational wheel appears; only albums appear as CDs, with the album art on the face of the CD. You can easily access the Now Playing screen from any menu in the Music Player while in portrait mode thanks to the dedication button at the bottom of the screen. Also, when you’re listening to music and doing something else on the device, not only is the song that’s playing in your notification bar, but you also see controls to skip or pause playback. Nice touch. The one gripe I have about the Music player is that you can’t turn the volume up or down is the phone is locked, something that I and many other will probably miss.

The Vibrant also comes with a built-in video player that supports DivX playback. I was able to watch a handful of episodes of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia without any hiccups. Videos looks gorgeous on the display, and after watching the last part of Avatar on the phone, you can easily see how stunning the screen is. The display is nice to look at on its own, but the real selling point for it is its media capabilities.

The Vibrant also has a Video Out option that uses the 3.5 mm headphone jack. You need a special cable to do this, a 3.5mm to RCA, which will run you about $30 if you get one at Radio Shack. You can also find them for under $5 online. The first thing I wanted to do once I got the cable was to play Avatar on my TV. That didn’t work. The output to the TV says that the video can only be played on the phone. You can thank the DRM copy protection on Avatar for this, but any video that you have downloaded should play back just fine on your TV.

One thing this video out option can do that you won’t see on devices like the EVO or Droid X is that the entire UI is shown on your TV. Yep, you can search the Android Market, write-up an email, or play games without a problem. Since the Samsung UI does not allow for landscape view on the home screen, I downloaded a home replacement so that the screen would fill up the TV in landscape mode. The quality isn’t great, though, and no where near the quality of the HDMI ports found on other devices. If you can deal without having the bestTV-out quality, you’ll have plenty of playing games on the big screen with your phone as the controller.

Camera

The Vibrant’s 5 megapixel camera performs quite well, even without a flash. From the short time I spent with the Behold 2, the one feature of the device I could sing praises for was its camera. This goes the same for the Vibrant, yet I do wish a flash was included.

Shot to shot performance is decent without having to turn the multi-shot mode on. The camera software allows you to tweak your photos with a handful of shooting modes such as Beauty, Smile shot, Continuous, Panorama, Vintage and more. There are also your standard filters, such as Negative, Sepia, and black and white. The camera also comes with a Face detection mode, but only seems to work when the Outdoor visibility mode is turned on.

Video capture performs well, but the playback is sometimes slightly choppy. Still, it records in full 720p HD resolution, and performs admirably. All shooting modes are also present with the camcorder, and the outdoor visibility mode does make a difference. The Camera as a whole performs very well, with some decent features thrown in. Now if they could have used an image sensor with larger pixels, like the iPhone 4, we’d be very happy.

Call Quality and Battery Life

Call Quality on the Vibrant was pretty solid, only sometimes could I hear white noise in the background of calls. I experience no dropped calls, and friends I was talking with said they could hear me loud and clear.

The speaker could stand to be just a little bit louder. When I tried to talk to a friend via speakerphone mode with the phone laying on its face, I got only decent performance – even with the speaker facing upwards. This isn’t a deal breaker for me in any way, since I never use speaker phone, but some would probably be happier if it was just a tad louder.

The phone dialer takes cues from HTC’s smart dialing feature that allows you to spell out a name with the dialer to pull up a contact. The phone app is quite snappy, and I experienced no lag.

Battery Life will easily get through a day without having to recharge it with moderate usage. If you wanted to watch Avatar a couple of times on a single charge, then you’d be out of luck. The battery performs decently with some heavy video playback, but it would be advised to keep a charger with you. Just in case. For a 1500 mAh battery, the Vibrant utilizes the juice pretty well, but a bigger battery would always be helpful, especially when the phone is being pushed as a multimedia device.

Summary and Conclusion

Overall, the Vibrant is the best device that has ever hit T-Mobile. It’s not just the best Android phone to ever hit T-Mobile, it’s the best smartphone to ever grace the Magenta network. Samsung has taken so many cues from its competition, namely Apple, that the similarities start to become obvious after a while. From the way your apps are displayed, to its media player, right down to the design of the phone, someone could easily mistake it for an iPhone 3G.

If you’re not hung up on those things, you’ll find the Vibrant a very pleasant device when it’s not getting bogged down and laggy (I still believe that the lag I experience is limited to my particular review unit, as I have yet to hear a single complaint from anyone else with the device).

Most importantly, the Vibrant sports a feature-set that T-Mobile desperately needed. The stand-out feature is obviously the Super AMOLED display, and to tell you the truth, after seeing its power, you could take out half the bells and whistles and the phone would still be great. Is this the smartphone for you this summer? If you’re looking for an Android smartphone on T-Mobile this summer, the T-Mobile Samsung Vibrant is as good as it gets!

That is one of the best reviews I read in a longtime. Very detailed…good job.

Mike

No 3G for Tmobile users

consortitude

What do you mean? I have a Vibrant and my 3g is perfectly fine all over my area, and I live in the mountains with national forest land everywhere. I have only hit Edge network in a couple small areas so far.

Guest

In Lafayette, Louisiana, I get over 4 Mbps!

sebastian

actually, there is 3g for t-mobile users i have i should know

matt

I am also not crazy about the UI but LOVE the Vibrant. Try LauncherPro as a home replacement, truly amazing and adds a larger doc at bottom, allows for 5 rows of apps per screen and is not laggy. Now if we could just sync iTunes playlists easily!

blakestimac

Really? Launcher Pro is what I used as a home replacement for a bit, and pretty much killed the Vibrant. May have a bunk review unit.

welshy992

The application dock is customizable. You have to goto the app directory, hit settings, view type, change to customizable grid. You can only change the center two though. The dialer and the app/home shortcuts are permanent

blakestimac

Awesome! thanks for the heads up! I was trying to find this to no avail!

OsO

Yes it is customizable! However i would recommend LauncherPro as well. Samsungs widgets are not good enough to stay with the original launcher.

Arnadoind

Great review!!! I'm using the phone now on tmobile and I love it. These galaxy S phones are wonderful.

NJrichieRich

Am I the only one experiencing problems when attempting to download apps from the market??? So far, I've only succeeded in downloading ONE app from the market and every other attempt has ended with "Download Unsuccessful"…

MC

I can’t download apps either. Tries to reboot a couple of times but didn’t help. Did you find anything?

Julie Ortega

HI, I have returned my Vibrant and exchanged for another one. I had problems downloading apps from market. My new phone had the same problem. I took it to the tmobile folks and they repalced the sim card. They could download an app so we thought the problem was solved. Now I can’t download any apps . The comment “download unsuccessful” keeps coming up. My daughters Vibrant downloads apps with out problems. She has a different problem. Her voice echos when she speaks into it. This is too bad – We will be visiting T mobile again today. Tired of problems. Has anyone else had this issue?

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=539144371 Anonymous

I have had this problem in the past and it is back. I can’t download apps from the Android Market. Gives back the error, ‘download unsuccessful’.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=539144371 Anonymous

I have had this problem in the past and it is back. I can’t download apps from the Android Market. Gives back the error, ‘download unsuccessful’.

Twist3db1ud

I used to have the same problem, its not the phone its the software, update and u should be fine. I personally rooted and flashed a custom os, apps download instantly

Thomas A Contento

Great review! I wish people would give this much attention to all the phones they put out there…… both the good and the bad on it. Personally, after having it for a week now, I am still finding new things I can do on it. (I came from owning the G1), there are plenty of little tweaks within the phone to make it 'feel' personalized, and while some really love to 'gut' their phone to do more, I am happy with being an above average android user, with doing just a little more. This is a great phone to step up to, or a first android phone to get. For those who 'keep waiting' for the next big thing… you will never get there. In the mean time, get this phone.

Dana

Come on Sprint! Hurry it up! I want this phone!

David

Sprint has the EVO 4G. While this is a great phone, it's no competition for the EVO.

Edwa

You can change the UI font if you don't like Droid Sans.

Pierre

THE GPS SUCKS BAD!!!!!!!

I love the phone, but the GPS has me wondering if I should've kept the MTS3G…….I did the little trick to "help it" but I still find myself having to reboot everytime to get a correct GPS location & signal……..

Pierre in San Antonio!

blakestimac

I suggest you take a look at the GPS fix post we have floating around specifically for the Vibrant.

maehz

can it do video calling through ym or skype?

Jen

what is the lower right video player control, the box that switches to arrows pointing in or out? what does that do? thanks.

Jason Johnson

That changes the video’s aspect ratio. It has stretched, normal, and full screen modes.

violet

how do I load my iphotos and itunes to my vibrant my mac doesn't see the vibrant when I plug it in

carmen mcrae

Thanks for clear info in all the internet clutter! 2 questions: * Did anyone address the issue of transfering music and podcasts from a Mac and itunes onto Vibrant phone? I’d love some help with this. * Calendars – is there any way to have multiple calendars on this phone? My google calendar is for business stuff and I’d like to have another calendar for personal stuff – like doctor’s appts, etc. Any help is appreciated! Tx

Holly

If you want to put itunes on your music player attach the usb port to the computer/laptop, make sure your debugging is ON, then there’s this stuff someone did for me (I don’t know if you might have the same problem doing this…) then go to finder, don’t click data, click the other one then drag music.

This is only if you got through the problem. I had the same problem but someone fixed it and I didn’t… so I don’t really know what should I have done.

Not a Samsung Fan

Personally I am not a fan of Samsung, my wife is on her second Behold 2 which T-Mobile upgraded after she had 3 Beholds and all of which had issues. 5 Samsung phones with problems in 14 months isn't very good, although to be fair to T-Mobile they replaced them all. Considering you'll drop $200 on this phone I would and am looking elsewhere in either an Iphone of Droid X for the same amount of money.

Jeff

I accidentally came across the AllShare app when i was fiddling around with my new phone. i was sitting in front of my Samsung 55 TV on the couch .. when something popped up on the TV. Wow.. i hit a button on the phone and I wirelessly streamed a video to the TV.. then I tried the photos.. Awesome! Then I tried and easily connected to my Nullriver MediaShare from my Imac.. I was able to stream songs from my Itunes from upstairs right to my phone!!! Bad Ass! I am so excited now! cant wait to show friends photos immediately on my big 55Led TV on the Fly!

Jason Johnson

I just want to know what weather widget is that on your home screen during your TV test video? That widget is beautiful.

Blake

You already knew it, Jason. It’s called Beautiful Widgets.

Abreueliz

I LIKE MY VIBRANT, THE ONLY THING THAT REALLY BOTHERS ME, IS THAT WHEN I UPLOAD A PHOTO IN FACEBOOK, I CAN’T TAG IT FROM THE SAME APPLICATION. I CONSIDER THAT A LIMITATION OF THE CELLPHONE.

Mickey Mair

Hi everyone, upgraded myself to this sleek Samsung Galaxy S i9000, after lots of research, it was a tough decision as all the similar latest models had almost similar features, the fast speed 1GB hummingbird processor, good battery life, excellent GPS features & really amazingly clear screen made me decide to select this model over others. Since almost over five weeks of usage no call drops, no phone hangs or freezes, no sync problems, has given me true satisfaction of my wise decision to pick this phone. Wi-Fi & blue tooth usage has much less battery drain compared to its competitors (no names please). Video calling is charm on this phone ‘cos of 1GB processor. Radio usage reception is excellent almost always. With 32GB memory, watched AVATAR in HD on my i9000 and at end of it I used 50% battery – not bad eh! Amazing masterpiece created by Samsung Galaxy S team. Overall performance is excellent for my usage. My advice buy the model which suits your usage habits, this model for sure is way ahead of others per my personal research, usage & satisfaction.

daniel

Very good review! And i have to agree with you when it comes to the lag. I have also experienced it while starting and closing apps. I have also experienced recording failures very often which i hate. Though overall the phone is great. Great review thanks.

Misslucky1869

When someone is calling on call waiting, the screen remains black!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Scsimoi

Battery life OK? You have pretty low expectations, or one of the better batteries. When I charge a phone I expect it to last 3 or 4 days on standby, and a couple of days with use. The Samsung Galaxy disappoints every time.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_FBQTTTYWIPMOH5ZMRMLGHHJCNM jujubilo2

HELP, HELP, One of my kids played with the access pattern which lock me out and I forget the password I use for this phone, is there any hope for me….please help, how can I reset my phone

Any help would be appreciated… thanks Mikey

Babywreckas14

how do you get your cracked screen fixed ?

Hills Holly

as he said, if you watch avatar a couple times a day on a single charge, you’re outta luck. I should’ve saw that before I let my friends play games…. I ran out of battery in 3 hours, but its a whole day if you only surf the web….

KISSINGJUS4YOU

THIS IS THE ALL TIME WORSE PHONE I HAVE EVER HAD….I BOUGHT MY FIRST PHONE ON MARCH 4…BY APRIL I HAD IT IN THE SHOP FOR A WEEK. TWO WEEKS LATER YOU WERE SENDING ME ANOTHER PHONE. THE WEEK AFTER ANOTHER PHONE NEEDLESS TO SAY I’VE HAD 5 PHONES WITH THE PROBLEM LAG TIME FREEZING UP ON ME MY BLUETOOTH WILL NOT STAY CONNECTED AND WHEN I TRY TO RECONNECT IT WILL NOT LET ME..,SO FOR YOUR $500.00 KEEP IT AND DO LIKE MOVE TO SPRINT OR ANYBODY WHO WILL AT LEAST TRY TO FIX THE PHONE OR TRADE IT OUT FOR SOMETHITHING THAT WORKS

Look2gofaster1

Samsung Vibrant is the best Phone i have ever had from T-Mobile it has done anything i have needed it to since the day i bought it.!

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1187676229 Wolf Revels

I keep seeing claims that Vibrant supports DIVX. Not mine, and I have had 3. Love the phone. But it doesn’t play divx with the built in player

Chastain Walker

This phone is Terrible. it takes 10 minutes to turn on. ive had it for 10 months and it is the worst peice of junk ever. it takes me 3-4 restarts to get it to turn on properly and by that time im down to 80% battery. the Battery last 4-5 hours with just texting and putting it on stanby inbetween texts. i have to wait till it tells me the date and time in the bottom left of texts to know it sent if i exit out of messages before that it wont send it. The phone force closes a lot. the phone decides to freeze a lot and decides that at times it wont show any apps on the home screen sliding pages. All in all this phone is a peice of junk

Keny_s3

does anybody know a unlock code for the network

Mozart824

Got galaxy s 1 very piece of junk! I got already 5 remplazed…it starts to malfunction within 2 days of exchage..My phone frizes and the screen turns black as soon as I make a call, I had to take the battery off to have my phone working again…there is nothing I can do to fix it

MikeDavid

Vibrant was ok for few days but later, it start running slow. It reboots frequently, freezes when video is running . On restart, it reboots so many times and its 30 min to show login screen. It is very painful to use this phone. I waiting my contract to end on this phone so I can throw away and buy better phone. Also the movie app: Avatar does not work

Daniellemoss25

i have a galaxy s 2 . my phone will turn off by its self then i cut it back on then it goes back what could be wrong with it

Daniellemoss25

i have a galaxy s 2 . my phone will turn off by its self then i cut it back on then it goes back what could be wrong with it